Today's Post Office Story

Ok, really the person in Managua that deals with packages that might actually have customs duty due. I think his name is Miguel. He replaced the woman who actually did her job late last year.

I have been waiting for one package for a while that contains a bunch of paperwork and two used CB radios. When I went to look up the mailing information I realized I also had another box with two new ham radios in it that was "lost". One is from 7 April, the other 19 April.

I conned Ana into calling him as she can swear better in Spanish than I can. So far, she didn't need to. He said, "Oh, yes, I have some packages for Don Phil. I will go look for them and call you back in five minutes." I guess it was good that she called because I would have already been swearing at him.

So, what have we learned so far? He does the "easy stuff" and if there is some paperwork to do, he puts the stuff in a pile in the corner and doesn't do anything unless you call. Great service but at least you know know how it works.

Now, his five minutes are up so I am going to just speculate on the next step. I expect it to be different for each package.

For the used CB radios (where the whole value of the package is under $100) I expect him to say:

1. He needs a invoice for the radios. (There should be one but who knows.)
2. He needs paperwork to get TELCOR permission to import them.

Now, FCC Part 95 compliant radios don't need import permission from TELCOR. Something I previously verified with TELCOR. So, that will be an interesting game. But, I have the contact info for a person at TELCOR.

For the other radios, they do need TELCOR permission (and I need to pay TELCOR). I also need to show that I have a ham license. In the past, the customs agent (in this case, the post office) just submits the form to TELCOR and the fee gets added to the customs fees to pay in BANCENTRO. But, while I have had a ham license her for years, I have never actually had the physical license. The current "delay" is that the guy who signs licenses hasn't signed any all this year. So, this should be more interesting.

Is there a positive side? Sure. I have never had the post office lose or damage anything in Nicaragua. So, if you need to ship something to Nicaragua but need it stored until you get here, buy a house, ..., just mail it. It looks like they will store stuff in Managua for you for as long as you want to wait.

Enough writing. Time to patiently wait for his call. :-)

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Wow, a quick update. Now, he didn't call but Ana called him back. Here are the new exciting details.

1. After a bit of argument, he agreed that the used CB radios didn't need permission from TELCOR. Now, I think this was just me preparing a good argument for Ana as, if there was no problem, it seems they would have been in Estelí ages ago. But, whatever.
2. For the other radios, he says I have to go to TELCOR to get permission. They don't do that.
3. He said he had a bunch of things for me but was going to send them all up here together. Not sure if that means every six months or what. :-)

This second one is interesting as I have imported phones and lots of other things that require a TELCOR license. In every case, the importing company did the TELCOR permission. This has included TransExpress and at least the post office of 1-2 years ago. Ana is now going to call TELCOR and see what they think.

But, that got me thinking about what is totally wrong with this picture. The Post Office is part of TELCOR. There are people in the post office in Estelí that are not post office employees but just TELCOR employees. (One seems to sit at her desk a lot of the time—the other two are always outside the building BSing with anyone that will talk to them. So, it would seem if any "package delivery company" could handle getting TELCOR permission, it would be the one that was part of TELCOR.